c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) John Dominic Crossan has a reputation as a liberal theologian for his role in the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars that has voted on the authenticity of the sayings of Jesus and other portions of the Bible.

But Crossan sometimes sounds like a conservative when talk turns to the apostle Paul.

“I do not agree that there’s a discontinuity between Jesus and Paul, that Paul disagreed with Jesus, or that Paul started Christianity,” said Crossan, professor emeritus of biblical studies at DePaul University and author of “In Search of Paul: How Jesus’ Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom.”

The apostle Paul has been the subject of at least three major new scholarly books in the past year, all of which celebrate him as one of history’s most important figures. After Jesus, Christianity and consequently the history of western civilization was influenced more definitively by Paul than anyone who followed, the scholars seem to agree. Paul set the stage for the spread of the faith and the conversion of the pagan Roman empire to Christianity within three centuries after the death of Jesus.

While Jesus is the main subject of the New Testament, Paul’s monumental effort to build the foundations for the new world religion are a close second. Crossan notes that 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament are attributed to Paul and his story dominates The Acts of the Apostles.

Paul was in direct defiance of the Roman imperial theology that Caesar was a god, Crossan said.

“Every coin said Caesar was god, the son of god, the redeemer,” Crossan said. “It was all around people, like advertising is all around today. When Paul is using these terms to refer to Christ, he is committing high treason. He’s directly saying Caesar is not the lord and savior, Jesus is.”

Before becoming its most crucial missionary, the former Saul of Tarsus had been an enemy of the new religion.

“He was persecuting Christians before he was an apostle,” Crossan said. “He knew all about them, enough to be thoroughly mad at them. What made him so mad was their saying that pagans can now be full members of God.”

It took a dramatic experience on the road to Damascus, the most famous religious vision in history, to turn him around.

“I have no doubt whatsoever he had a vision,” Crossan said. “He’s not just saying it for dramatic effect. Otherwise, you have no explanation of the change.”

Although Luke refers to it as a blinding light, Crossan said that Paul clearly saw the risen Jesus.

“The vision was much more likely not of a blinding light, but of Christ himself,” Crossan said. “My understanding would be that Paul as a Jew was probably an ecstatic, a mystic, an ascetic. He probably had visions long before he became a Christian.”

Paul then picked up what Jesus had been saying and began to take it to a non-Jewish audience.

“Jesus insisted that the kingdom of God had already begun,” Crossan said. “People were called to participate in it. Paul is saying the same thing. Jesus was preaching among Jews. Paul was out there among the pagans in the Roman empire.”

Crossan, an expert in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic, insists that of the 13 letters attributed to Paul, seven were written by him, six were not.

Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon are indisputably Paul, he said. Scholars agree that 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus were probably written by one of Paul’s followers and attributed to him, Crossan said. Ephesians, Colossians and 2 Thessalonians may also be by someone other than Paul, he said. Some scholars make that judgment based on changes in tone, language and theological emphasis. “He doesn’t use key terms he’s used before,” Crossan said.

By disputing Paul’s authorship, the scholars sidestep controversial views on the role of women in the church traditionally attributed to Paul. They note he emphasizes gender equality in other passages, including 1 Corinthians 7.

Conservative scholars, like Beeson Divinity School Dean Timothy George of Samford University, question those assumptions.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a consensus,” George said. “Among those who question the Pauline authorship, it’s a majority. Where the Bible attributes authorship, those who accept the full trustworthiness of the Bible accept that on face value when there’s no overwhelming evidence otherwise. When you say it’s a different style, tone, or mood, we don’t always write in the same pitch or tone, so why would the apostle Paul over a lifetime?”

But there’s no question about the importance of Paul’s far-flung missionary journeys that began in the ’40s and his letters written in the ’50s, the earliest written testimonies to Jesus.

The new scholarly trend seems to give Paul a lot of credit for maintaining the theological consistency of Jesus’ message, while making it appealing to a new audience and giving it the impetus that would take it to the world.

“If you ask me what Jesus would have said to Paul,” Crossan said, “I think he would have said, `Thank you.”’

MO/JL END RNS

(Greg Garrison is a reporter for The Birmingham (Ala.) News)

Editors: Check the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for a photo of John Dominic Crossan examining an inscription on the ruins of an ancient building in Turkey.